Man, maangi dekk ci Ouakam.

Asalaamaleekum, friends! I have been taking photos like crazy, I’m glad to be back in that habit. I also took some videos which might be posted soon, depending on my amount of free time. Here is what I’ve been up to: (to what I have been up? Shoot, preposition jar either way!)

Wednesday: The whole morning was spent giving presentations about Urban Art in Senegal. Each person (or small group) had to pick some form of Urban Art in Senegal and find out as much as possible about it by asking locals for information/opinions, observing the art, possibly trying it, researching, etc. I was with Erin and Clare and we did our project on Senegalese fabrics; they concentrated on the weavers of Senegal and I was more researching the symbolization of colors/designs and what women could wear as opposed to men. It gave everyone practice interviewing, collecting information and presenting information—everything we’re doing now is basically trying to prepare us for our Independent Study Project (which is rapidly approaching, surprisingly enough!) In the afternoon we had more dance/djembe workshops, and then a bunch of us went to a lecture at the French Cultural Center. In Senegal apparently, for each Family name, there is a little joke that goes along with it. So when someone greets a Diop, for example, they may say, “Oh, Diop, are you hungry?” Because Diops are known to eat a lot. We were under the impression that the lecture would teach us more about this practice, but the second it started everyone became extremely tired and uninterested. (The speaker just read a paper, looked up once in a very great while, and answered questions at the end.) It was just too much for a lot of us to try to comprehend. When I got home the power was out—which meant the TV didn’t work!! I thought maybe that would be a good opportunity to make conversation, without the distraction of the TV, but people seemed to just want to sit and be silent. When the power came back on around 10:15 PM dinner was prepared and I was très fatigué so I went to bed right afterwards.

Thursday: We had our last dance and djembe workshops, which was sad ☹ but I videotaped parts of both so hopefully you will get the chance to watch them and laugh at us! Of course the day I video taped dance we didn’t do the dance we already knew, but rather learned a new one in an hour and had to perform the whole thing at the end. But laugh all you want, it was FUN.
I got home pretty early and Adji said we were going to her sister’s house across town. I was excited because this was the first time we ever got to visit another house! I also learned, on our walk, how to get to Cité Avion, where a couple other students live. We walked for 20-30 minutes and arrived at what looked like a normal Senegalese house from the outside, but inside was HUGE and very fancy. I was told that there are six living rooms, and was invited anytime to go over and do my homework or hang out because they have so much extra space. They brought me up onto the terrace, where they had 6 scary huge goats with curly horns, and then they brought me up another level where you could see the city skyline and the airport. There were two little girls: Adiji (8) and Amico (10) who really loved to ask me questions, teach me Wolof and try out their little English. I think they were skeptical that I actually knew English because they kept testing me: One girl would say, “Okay, tell me what number I’m saying, in French.
Amico: [super-strong Sengalese accent, in English:] One.”
Me: “Un.”
Amico: Two.
Me: Deux.
Amico: Three.
Me: Trois.
Amico: Five.
Me: Cinq.
Really, Amico, do you think I don’t know my numbers in English? Trying to trick me by skipping four? Nice try. Anyway, they were really fun and talked SO MUCH so I got to practice my French a lot. There’s also a boy, Papado (12) who offered (well, not so much “offered,” I’ll explain in a minute*) to run to my house and walk me over to his house whenever I wanted.
*Young boys here, in training to become men, are basically bossed around and expected to do everything in a household, even if it is not their household. Whenever Popado or Badou (another 12-yr-old nephew) are here, they are running to fetch laundry, food, etc., cleaning up trash, giving up their seats to others—it’s a little hard to get used to but it’s just one of those things that I don’t really understand and it’ll take a while to accept. I know that’s the norm here and I have no right to think that American culture is doing things right while other cultures are not, some parts of this culture are just so different from what I’ve been brought up with, it’s difficult to change my values/beliefs of over 20 years in the 3 weeks that I’ve been here. Enough cultural critique, Emily. *
Anyhow we stayed at Mariam’s house (Adji is actually Adji Mariam, this sister is actually something like Moom Mariam) for dinner, we had a yummy mutton soup (I got my own plate and silverware!) and then took a taxi home on the worst road I’ve ever even considered driving on, one-lane with oncoming traffic and potholes the size of hippos. The driving here, if I’ve not already mentioned it, is TERRIFYING.

Friday: I went to L’île de Gorée, the island where the slaves were kept before being shipped to the Americas. Just after leaving the port a woman on the boat had a seizure, it was really scary and it made me think how difficult it would be to have an emergency in Senegal, not being fluent in French and not knowing medical practices here. Luckily there was a doctor there and the woman was okay, but the boat turned around and she was carried off to go to a hospital. Once we got going again the boat ride was beautiful, the ocean was very choppy so we got splashed a lot even though we were upstairs. Gorée was very, very touristy but it was so interesting to walk through the inhabited areas; it made me wonder how different life is for those Senegalese trying to live traditionally surrounded by vendors and toubabs. We went to the Maison des Esclaves (house of slaves), which was a bit disturbing. I walked through the rooms where children were separated from their parents, where people were chained, half naked and in awful conditions, only allowed to go to the toilet once a day…it was a beautiful little house but I couldn’t help thinking about what it meant to people in the past. We went to a couple more museums and ate lunch, and then had 45 minutes just to walk around. I decided to forget sunscreen on the one day we were actually going to be outside, so I was pretty red in the face by the time we left. Adji re-named me: Madame Rouge. When I got home and was thinking how disturbing the woman with the seizure was, and how disturbing the maison des esclaves was, another disturbance popped up! Kewe, my 3-yr-old niece, all of a sudden started bawling and slapping her own face, yelling, “Leave me! Leave me!” In Wolof. I was so afraid that she was having some sort of seizure as well until Adji burst out laughing and told me that Kewe had stuck a little bean up her nose and couldn’t get it out.

Saturday: What a fun-packed, tiring day!!! We rode the bus for 2+ hours to get to Bandia, a wildlife reserve that hosts only herbivores (no lions, darn). I’ll post pictures, but just to get an idea we saw red and green monkeys, giraffes, pretty birds, rhinos, gazelles, antelopes, crocodiles…it was pretty exciting. Afterwards we went to this BEAUTIFUL oasis place called Campement Ndaali, where we will end up in May doing our ISP presentations for the last 5 days of our trip (starting, I think, on my birthday!). We ate a much-needed lunch and spent a couple hours on the beach, and then headed back to SIT. The traffic was horrible but we made it on time to the Senegalese “Ballet,” which is a very long story in itself. We were told before going that this performance wasn’t a big deal, it was free and there wouldn’t be much of a crowd; upon arriving, though, we found out that it was a Gala event and many important people were there. Everyone was very dressed up (they always are here, but even more so) and before I tried to get in, some of my classmates were told they couldn’t go in because they were not dressed properly. To make a very, very long story short, we got our Djembe teacher, Mamadou Fall (who was actually in the show we were going to see) to tell the bouncers that we were welcome there, we were led to a tiny waiting room and sat with two Senegalese women for over half an hour, and then were finally let in after the show started, but made to go upstairs. That was fine with me: we got front-row balcony seats and could see very well. The show was inexplicable, very African, not a “ballet” at all. There were probably 50 different dancers in colorful African costumes, some in very traditional, tribal wear and others in more modern dress, there were djembe players and a line of 11 kora players, there was a little kid who was SO cute and had a dance solo—there’s just no way to explain what it was like, I’m sorry! At one point there were 5 male dancers on stage with big poofy pants that looked really neat when they danced, and suddenly the pants of the guy in the front of the stage were on the floor—I don’t remember the last time I laughed so hard. Then a couple minutes later, another guy lost his pants! It was ridiculous, but they just continued. Our whole class was going to go out dancing afterwards but everyone was way too tired, so we just went home and slept.

Sunday: Nothing really of interest; I did some more laundry, I talked a lot with Adji (who was telling me I don’t talk enough and people think I’m mad at them when I don’t talk…long story. I explained that if people don’t talk to me it’s hard to know that they want to, and when they speak Wolof all the time it seems like they might not want me to be part of the conversation, and I don’t want to interrupt a Wolof conversation to say, every other word, “What are you talking about?”, etc. She seemed to understand some of my points but wasn’t willing to agree that it was hard to start a conversation in French when everyone’s always yelling in Wolof.) Anyway we looked through her photo album and mine and talked a bunch, I learned how to make jus de buy (juice with Baobob fruit)…yup, that’s about it.

So hopefully, if anything interesting happens, I'll update before Thursday--If not, I won't be updating for quite some time because we're leaving for our first Village stay in Kedougou (the South-East corner of Senegal). It will be over 100 degrees every day, no running water or electricity...so I'll let you know how that goes!! I hope everything in the U.S. is going well!!!